PCT Day 126, Mile 2040 to 2070

We woke up early with the intention of catching up to Shepherd at Olalie Lake but we’d missed him when we arrived there just before 7am. There was a sign on the trail saying the shop opened at 7am so we took the short side trail to go and buy some snacks. It was so much colder at Olalie lake than it was where we camped at Upper lake and we huddled around the log fire inside the shop trying to warm up. We bought a hot chocolate and snacks and got talking to a lady called Chainsaw Jen who was out here to reunite a lost dog called Joe with its owner Happy. Jen was from Bend and had brought cakes and brownies with her from a bakery there which she gave us and were absolutely delicious. She also gave us 2 slices of pizza to take away with us for lunch, thank you for your generosity Jen!

Mt Jefferson across Olalie Lake

Olalie Lake shop

We came across these berries and thought they might be blueberries… And then we did something you should never ever do… We ate handfuls of them without knowing for sure that they were edible. We were maybe 70% sure…
At the next spring where I needed to refill with 2 litres, we were greeted with a salamander/newt? and dozens of frogs… We also met 2 section hikers from Oregon at the spring who were able to identify the ‘blue berry’ as a black huckleberry and edible… Phew! I didn’t like the idea of having to take water from a frog infested spring but I only had half a litre left for a 12 mile stretch and it was hot… So I had to.

Look carefully and you’ll see this log is full of frogs

The section hikers also pointed out these lingonberries which are tiny:
We stopped for lunch and ate the pizza slices that Chainsaw Jen had given us, thanks again 🙂

Lunch on a log

As KC and I were walking along we noticed someone kind of behind a tree. And next minute we both recognised the person. It was Howard! He had flown over from London again to surprise me and surprised I definitely was! He had found me with the Inreach and had been waiting on a small forest road for a couple of hours for us to walk along. While he had been waiting he’d met Overeasy, CC, Hush Puppy a southbounder and some section hikers and handed out cold beer, the easiest way to make friends with a hiker 😉 We stayed for about an hour, had a beer, ate some of my favourite English chocolate and snacks and then said goodbye as we needed to still hike about 10 miles and it was now 6pm. We arranged to meet tomorrow at Timberline lodge.

With KC and Howard

We walked into the night, put our headlamps on and kept going. We no longer needed dinner from all the snacks we’d eaten with Howard but whatever miles we didn’t walk today, we would have to walk tomorrow in order to arrive for our reservation. We came to a sign saying Horse camp around 10:30pm and decided to set up camp for the few hours we’d be sleeping… We would be waking up at the crack of dawn to get to Timberline at a decent time.